JOHN MCCAIN VISITS DELAWARE'S GOLD STAR TOWN

Seaford had such an aura to it on Saturday, maybe it
was not so strange that even someone who could be the
next president of the United States turned up here.

It was a day for good-byes in this little city in
western Sussex County, its 6,000 or so residents knitted
together by patriotism as tightly as the DuPont Nylon
that made it famous.

There was a joyful sendoff for state Rep. Tina
Fallon, an 88-year-old Republican and Seaford's
best-known retired school teacher who is making her 14th
legislative term her last.

There was a solemn farewell for Cory Palmer and Rick
James, Marines barely in their 20s, killed in Iraq a
week apart. The viewing for Palmer was Saturday, with
his funeral scheduled on Sunday and the one for James on
Wednesday.

U.S. flags fastened to porches and lowered to
half-staff in front of public places were as plentiful
as they were after Sept. 11, a Gold Star city
spontaneously forming itself into an honor guard for its
lost Marines.

In an accident of timing, John McCain came to
Seaford, a visit from a Republican presidential prospect
and one of the country's most famed war heroes who knows
firsthand the sacrifice that William Butler Yeats, the
Irish poet, once called "a terrible beauty."

McCain has the bearing of a military man, although he
is nowhere near as tall as he stands in political lore,
and there is an imperfection to it, a marked rigidity to
his shoulders that comes from two broken arms (and a
knee) that were left untreated when his Navy aircraft
was hit over Vietnam in 1967 and he spent more than five
years as a prisoner of war.

McCain was supposed to be in Delaware on Saturday
only for a fund-raiser in Dewey Beach for U.S. Rep.
Michael N. Castle, a fellow Republican maverick, but
Castle became determined to get McCain across Sussex
County to Seaford, too, and Castle does not lose many of
those.

The timing was tight -- McCain was coming in from New
York and had to be back in Washington for an appearance
the next morning on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
-- but they did it.

McCain and Castle strolled into the Seaford Fire Hall
precisely on time for Castle to give his tribute to
Fallon in front of about 350 people, who were not as
surprised as they might have been because of speculation
all week long that McCain might show.

Trim and turned-out as ever, the tiny Fallon sat on a
makeshift throne with red cushioning and a high wooden
back, and she wore a dress of deep turquoise with swirls
of royal purple. With Castle at the microphone, she was
flanked by McCain and U.S. Sen. Thomas R. Carper, a
Democrat, in an unforgettable tableau that could have
happened only in Delaware.

McCain spoke for about three minutes, but he said
everything he needed to say, both about Fallon and the
fallen Marines.

At 69, McCain said his age would be a question if he
runs for president, so he quipped it would help "if Tina
would consider being my running mate," and then he got
serious and offered condolences for "two brave young
men."

It was short, but it was memorable. As former Mayor
Daniel B. Short, the master of ceremonies who is also
the Republican candidate running for Fallon's seat, said
afterwards, "We're getting to see the spectrum of
emotion here in Seaford. His remarks were right on the
money."

An hour or so earlier in Dewey Beach at Castle's
fund-raiser, McCain had talked about the war he supports
in Iraq and its effects, not only its frustrations but
its promise if the government there is stabilized, the
economy improved, oil production restored and U.S.
casualties stanched.

"Americans are very unhappy because we have not
completed the mission. We have made many mistakes, but
mistakes are made in every war," he said. "Insurgencies
are always slowly won. . . . Democracy is contagious. If
it works in Iraq, it'll spread throughout the Middle
East."

McCain's sober assessment seemed extra-stark because
of the surroundings. It was otherwise a light-hearted
spring day at the beach with about 100 of the beautiful
people gathered at an oceanfront property, which once
belonged to a du Pont, for an event expected to ladle
another $25,000 or $30,000 into Castle's campaign
treasury -- already plump at more than $1 million, in
contrast to Democrat Dennis Spivack, running in the red.

For the most part, McCain was light-hearted, too,
after Castle introduced him in the spirit of the day as
"almost always right in what he is doing -- a little
further right than I am."

McCain joked about his presidential ambitions as the
senator from a state that failed to launch Barry
Goldwater, Mo Udall, and Bruce Babbitt -- "Arizona may
be the only state in American where mothers don't tell
their children they can grow up to be president" -- and
about the appalling poll numbers for Republicans on
Capitol Hill -- "The approval rating of Congress is 22
percent, you get down to paid staff and blood
relatives."

McCain said he has not decided whether he will run
for president in 2008 and was traveling throughout the
country simply to help Republican candidates for the
Congress in 2006, but nobody was buying that. Here he
was in an early primary state with a seven-term
congressman who does not so much run for re-election as
cake-walk to it.

"I can't remember a situation where the nominee was
so clear this far out, other than re-election," said
Glenn C. Kenton, a former secretary of state for Gov.
Pierre S. du Pont from 1977 to 1985 and chief adviser
for du Pont's 1988 presidential campaign. "I think it's
a lay-down. Who's going to beat him?"

Priscilla B. Rakestraw, the Republican national
committeewoman, had similar thoughts. "He's the
front-runner. Everybody points to him, not just for the
Republican nomination but for president. It's almost as
if he's a rock star. I'm impressed enough to say to him,
Senator, let's talk," she said.

McCain got a kick out of being in Dewey Beach when he
was told he was next to a multi-million dollar house
that once belonged to Michael Scanlon, the local
ex-lifeguard and Washington lobbyist who teamed up with
Jack Abramoff to bilk Indian tribes and influence
members of Congress.

McCain, as the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee, investigated Scanlon's dealings and was as
captivated as everyone else in official Washington by
the testimony from a lifeguard enticed for $2,500 to be
a front man for a phony think tank. The duped lifeguard
was happy to expose all -- down to a bogus board meeting
that lasted 15 minutes.

"The lifeguard looked a lot like Kato Kaelin to me,"
McCain said. "It was a remarkable hearing. It was one of
those times you say, you can't make it up."

It was very funny, and it helped to make Dewey Beach
feel like an oasis. Not long after, McCain was on his
way across the county to Seaford, where as the poet
says, a terrible beauty was born.